Scientists Name New Species of Horned Dinosaur

Scientists Name New Species of Horned Dinosaur

Two new horned dinosaurs have been named based on fossils collected from Alberta, Canada. Unescopceratops koppelhusae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni are new species from the Leptoceratopsidae horned dinosaur family. The herbivores lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 75 to 83 million years ago. The specimens are described in Cretaceous Research.

“These dinosaurs fill important gaps in the evolutionary history of small-bodied horned dinosaurs that lack the large horns and frills of relatives like Triceratops from North America,” said lead author Michael Ryan, Ph.D., curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Although horned dinosaurs originated in Asia, our analysis suggests that leptoceratopsids radiated to North America and diversified here, since the new species, Gryphoceratops, is the earliest record of the group on this continent.”